Saturday, June 9, 2012

Don't miss Mary Poppins!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

As of this post (Saturday, June 9th.. 10ish-am), there are only four showings left of Mary Poppins at Broadway San Jose! So if you were on the fence about attending, now is the time to make up your mind!

If you are like the majority of us, your memory of Mary Poppins is the magical Disney musical movie staring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Sometimes when you go to see a show and you already have an image of what you expect to see you can sometimes be disappointed if it doesn't live up to those memories.

Let me say, this production was RIGHT THERE with the movie, of course including a few of its own characteristics and moments, but I felt the movie come alive!

So I'm not a professional critic - I'm Jen. I like movies, and musicals, and a play here and there. Let me break this down in a few points:

Set design & technical bits:

WOW. Oh my wow. Right away my jaw kind of dropped at what we were treated with and within a few short minutes you are left thinking, "What are they going to do next?!" I want to list the specifics but I don't want to give them away because they're just such fun, it adds a whole layer to the show. They did a great job adding the "magic" to the show for sure.

Song & Dance numbers:

I'd say 90% of them had me smiling and singing along, tapping my toes along with the cast as they danced. The Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious number alone had me in awe of the awesome memory skills the cast possess. It's CRAZY. Let's just say, I can manage a good YMCA, but this is just nuts. ('Nuts' in a totally awesome fantastical way, that is.)

Characters:

While the whole cast was wonderful, the powers that be certainly picked awesome actors for Mary and Bert. The Mary felt very "Julie Andrews" to me, and that's meant as a compliment to the actor - I wanted my take-away to feel like I just watched the movie LIVE, I didn't want to walk away thinking they changed too much or went off character too much -- and they didn't. The Bert character, had his own approach to the character but totally nailed a lot of the Dick Van Dyke mannerisms from the movie too.

Overall it was one of those really heart-warming, wholesome, good fun musicals. Right away you're transformed into the Mary Poppins world and from beginning to end there are technical treats, colorful numbers (they treated the 'cartoon' parts perfectly!) and so much more. I love it when the show is over and you hear everyone immediately singing their favorite part or mentioning how amazing another part was…